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December 19-21, 2006

ESCWA/ICTDAR - Cairo

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• “In a world without walls or fences who needs windows and gates?”

• Large groups of people are inherently smarter than an elite few

• A new 'production structure' that is somehow unique or special to a 'knowledge economy' and will transcend or replace production structures of the industrial era.

• ‘From the Cathedral to the Bazaar’ (E.Raymond)

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• Part of the larger movement that :• Put the net back on track towards its original goal of sharing

information and knowledge around the world.

• Promotes free and unrestricted access to Knowledge, where Knowledge is a social product and as such becomes an international social property.

• Provides open access to the primary teaching materials for courses taught at educational institutions, – enabling :

• educators to draw on the materials for teaching purposes,

• students and self-learners to use the materials for the development of their own personal knowledge.

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• Key components of the architecture include:– Course planning application

– Content management application (CMA)

– Content repository

– Content delivery application (CDA)

– Content import and export functionality

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• Publishes course materials created by faculty (and sometimes other colleagues or students) to support teaching and learning

• Is IP-cleared, meaning that – the opencourseware publisher has the rights to make the materials

available under open terms

– and that nothing in the materials infringes the copyrights of others 

• Offers the materials free of charge for non-commercial use• Is universally accessible via the Web

• COST: For the 1st 2-Year Phase, 12 MUSD$ !!!

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• OCW is insufficient by itself:– No interaction– No Certificate (Important in Arab World)

• Interaction is needed.

• Summative evaluation is needed

• OCW is NOT a DISTANCE LEARNING OPERATION

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OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES

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• The open provision of educational resources enabled by ICT, for:

• Consultation

• Use

• Adaptation by a community of users

• Noncommercial Profit purposes.

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• The resources are intended for college and university faculties to adapt in accordance with their curricular and pedagogical requirements;

• Included technologies support open, meaningful access and use of the material.

• A set of open courses that are the product of contributions from many faculty throughout the world,

• Built on open standards and software architectures that will allow the courses to be easily transformed as technologies change

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• The coexistence of – many different approaches to address the same

course material, – coming from different professors, universities or

regions,

an effective mean to guarantee both a high level of university education, as well as a better mutual understanding and mutual cultural enrichment.

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• A set of open courses that are the product of contributions from many faculty throughout the world,

• Built on open standards and software architectures that will allow the courses to be easily transformed as technologies change,

• Following the “Bazaar” Approach.

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COMPONENTS

Developers are the Source of

the Value ChainComponents, Assemblies,

Objects Material, Resources, Courses, Curricula Tools, Kits,

Books, Periodicals, etc.

LEARNER

LEARNING MANAGEMENT

LEARNING CONTENTMANAGEMENT

SYSTEMS

DEVELOPERS

STANDARDS

COURSECATALOG

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Educational Process

Store and Archive

Research

Create

Publish and

DistributeCommunicate and

Collaborate

Administrate

Educational Process

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•The price tag for proprietary software is enormous in purchasing power terms.

•The price of a typical, basic proprietary toolset required for any ICT infrastructure, Windows XP together with Office XP, is US$560 in the U.S.

•This is over 17 months of GDP/capita in Sudan and over 13 months of GDP/capita in Yemen.

•This is the equivalent of charging a single–user licence fee in the U.S. of US$50,000 and US$38,217 respectively, which is clearly unaffordable.

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Country GDP/cap PCs (‘000s) Piracy WinXP Cost

        Effective $ GDP months

Algeria 1773 220 n.a. 11140 3.79

Bahrain 12189 92 77% 1621 0.55

Djibouti 894 7 n.a. 22107 7.52

Egypt, Arab Rep. 1511 1010 58% 13075 4.45

Israel 17024 1564 40% 1160 0.39

Jordan 1755 165 67% 11257 3.83

Kuwait 16048 270 76% 1231 0.42

Lebanon 3811 247 79% 5184 1.76

Malaysia 3699 3000 70% 5341 1.82

Mauritania 366 28 n.a. 53959 18.35

Morocco 1173 400 61% 16840 5.73Source: World Bank World Development Indicators Database, 2001; Piracy data from Business Software Alliance: GDP/capita in US$, Windows + Office XP cost in effective US$ equivalent cost calculation = $560 * (U.S. GDP per capita/Country GDP per capita).

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Country GDP/cap PCs (‘000s) Piracy WinXP Cost

        Effective $GDP months

Saudi Arabia 8711 1343 52% 2268 0.77

Sudan 395 115 n.a. 49990 17.00

Syrian Arab Republic 1175 270 n.a. 16815 5.72

Tunisia 2066 229 n.a. 9560 3.25

United States 35277 178326 25% 560 0.19

West Bank and Gaza 1286 n.a. n.a. 15366 5.23

Yemen, Rep. 514 35 n.a. 38434 13.07

Source: World Bank World Development Indicators Database, 2001; Piracy data from Business Software Alliance: GDP/capita in US$, Windows + Office XP cost in effective US$ equivalent cost calculation = $560 * (U.S. GDP per capita/Country GDP per capita).

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Country GDP/capPCs

(‘000s)Piracy WinXP Cost

        Effective $ GDP months

Regional Aggregates         

European Union 20863 116997 n.a. 947 0.32

EU Accession countries 4840 8286 n.a. 4082 1.39

EU applicant countries 2023 3592 n.a. 9766 3.32

The Caribbean 4560 308 n.a. 4332 1.47

Latin America 4335 18703 n.a. 4557 1.55

Africa 652 7636 n.a. 30297 10.31

Middle East 2679 9708 n.a. 7375 2.51

Asia 2128 102229 n.a. 9282 3.16

Oceania 13946 11886 n.a. 1417 0.48

Source: World Bank World Development Indicators Database, 2001;

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• Adapting the material to local cultural, curricular, and pedagogical conditions

• Translating it into Arabic used by local students and faculties

• Adapting to Student Profile

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Access to educationfor people with varying financial resources and needs

Appropriate quality standards to be met

Use of resources to support realization of a well-educated Arab community

Access/equity concerns:

Quality concerns:

Social/economic concerns:

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Service Sector

Management, eBusiness, eLearning, HRD, etc.

Added-Value Instructional Design Chain:

Design, Development, DeliveryRequirements (3D):

Training Gaps in:

Shift Towards Knowledge Society

Main Pillar

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• HOW DO WE ?

– Equip ourselves with human and technological capabilities to contribute to open course ware development in a global competitive context?

– Develop the skills of adaptation of open courseware to suit the local requirements?

– Build-in elements of culture sensitivity in open courseware?

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• HOW DO WE ?

– Address the question of language especially in the multi lingual contexts when courseware is largely available in English? (We have to spend a lot of energy and resources having three languages: Arabic, English, French)?

– Open courseware looks more like an input activity. How do we integrate the processes and outcomes of open courseware?

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Q: WHY? A: To Overcome Barriers of Open Course Adoption

• Lack of awareness on

long term risks created by current vendor-driven proprietary model

business models for open source

• Lack of impetus

• Lack of Technical Access (BB)

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• Lack of capacity Poor Content

Low production quality

• Lack of Resources

Skilled Human Resources

Non-Readiness to use Resources

Financial Resources

Q: WHY? A: To Overcome Barriers of Open Course Adoption

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FIRST PRIORITY:

Creating a Globally Viable Infrastructure

If open resources are to be made broadly available, some technology fundamentals must be in place:

Connectivity, including access to the material in locations with limited bandwidth;

Software that works on a variety of platforms, using agreed standards;

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S/W – Systems - Infrastructure - Training Software that permits easy modification of content as the resource is adapted for local use (e.g. in the case of MIT OCW initiative, MIT response to institutions willing to translate courseware was to maintain the traditional academic freedom of its faculty, relying, with regard to political and cultural issues, on the users of OCW to make necessary local adaptations) ;

Systems that support multiple languages;

An infrastructure made workable through the existence of technically skilled people.

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S/W – Systems - Infrastructure – Training Training – developing and maintaining local technical competence -- is a key requirement. Skilled or trainable developer pool. If the country does not have a skilled or trainable developer pool, then it is not feasible to participate in the OSS development activities. It is of course still viable to execute other aspects of the OSS strategy.Intellectual property (IP) law framework and enforcement. A common symptom in developing countries is the lack of IP laws and/or the failure to enforce IP laws.Low cost (Free), widely available Internet access. A critical factor for open source participation is the ability to become part of the Internet. Since open source only works over the Internet, policies that favor the use and spread of the Internet are essential to building a healthy open source community (e.g. legal case of VoIP in most developing countries is a barrier, as being contrary to the state owned telecommunications company).

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S/W – Systems - Infrastructure – TrainingEducational infrastructure. Even for base adoption of OSS products, the IT education infrastructure must be widely disseminated. A network of training/educational institutions that teach basic computing skills is essential to promulgate the dissemination of OSS products and solutions.

Freedom of information. Access to the Internet brings with it free access to information, a requirement to open source to succeed.

Language Skilled Developers. Even beyond traditional development, because of the geographically and temporally distributed nature of OSS development, good communication skills are a critical tool of the successful OSS developer.

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• USEE Programme

• TEAM FrameWork

• Open Source Platform Adoption (e.g. MOODLE )

• UNESCO/EU-MED INCO Initiative: AVICENNES Project

Mainly UNESCO

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• We need a clear policy and clear message for open educational resources.

• The future is for open collaborative educational resources.

• And Last but not Least:• “Knowing is not enough, We must Apply!

• Willing is not enough, We must DO!”

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